


Dinosaurs?! ...Dinosaurs.

by newtypeshadow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America made me add the language tag, Dinosaurs, Explicit Language, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Mission Fic, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtypeshadow/pseuds/newtypeshadow
Summary: Tony Stark's day is interrupted when the Avengers are called out to rural Missouri to take care of a dinosaur infestation.Yeah, that's right. Dinosaurs.This is Tony's life now.





	Dinosaurs?! ...Dinosaurs.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the February Ficlet Challenge 2019 [Day 12 prompt, "Dinosaurs"](https://februaryficletchallenge.tumblr.com/post/182752120533/ficlet-challenge-prompt-12).

Of fucking course it’s dinosaurs today. Why did Tony think the call to Assemble would be for anything else.

Oh, because dinosaurs are extinct.

Yeah, that’s probably it.

Half an hour ago, Tony’s widow bite upgrades were interrupted so he and a handful of the Avengers could fly out to Bumbfuck, Missouri and take care of a minor dinosaur infestation. About a dozen unknownasaurs are running around what Tony thinks only qualifies as a town on a technicality. This “town” is a post office with a wall of P.O. boxes out front, a church, a few ramshackle houses with acres between them, and a long two-lane, lettered highway sprawling through the middle. It’s a lot of wide-open space and not a single building above one storey—to Clint’s hilariously vociferous dismay. At least the sky’s clear and the temp is in the mid fifties. The latter makes no difference to Tony, but Clint, Natasha, and Sam don’t have the protection of a suit (Tony), a serum (Steve and Bucky), or the quinjet (Bruce).

Bruce and Bucky are geeking out. Honestly, three-year-old Tony Stark would be over the moon getting to see dinosaurs in the flesh too. But forty-odd Tony Stark has put away childish things like wanting to see real live dinosaurs, because—as with snowfall after learning how to drive—being an adult means you have to actually deal with the consequences of this shit.

Don’t misunderstand. Tony’s recording everything from this encounter for scientific use, and he may recruit Sam to do some fancy flying with him that’s not strictly necessary to test dinosaur running speeds, jumping ability, and hunting patterns; paleontology isn’t his field, but philanthropy isn’t exclusively about donating money.

The minute they’ve got these things contained, Tony will be excited that the Avengers got to rumble with dinosaurs.

But these things _aren’t_ contained, which means Tony’s friends’ lives are still in danger, which means dinosaurs are hellspawn that must be taken down.

Whatever kind of dinosaurs these are. They’re not any kind Tony recognizes—they’re all bipedal, none of them is over seven feet tall, and they all have spikes in places that should make breeding impossible, which would explain why they’re extinct, but not how they came to exist in such numbers in the first place.

Suspicious.

“We sure these’re real dinosaurs?” Bucky asks through the comms.

Bruce admits, “I was also wondering that.”

Clint groans. “Ugh, dinosaur fanboys.”

“Wasn’t every kid?” asks Cap.

“I wasn’t,” Natasha says. “I’m checking the church for additional civilians.”

It’s Sunday morning, and there are cars in its parking lot. Oh, and its doors are hanging off their hinges like something busted out of them. “Good call,” Tony says. Meanwhile, “J, see if you can find out what species our errant dinosaurs are. And scan the area, see if there’s anything hinky going on that we’ve missed.”

“Could you include sounds outside the normal human auditory range please?” Bucky asks, ever polite to JARVIS. Then, somewhat testily, “Find me whatever that dog whistle sound is coming from so I can shoot it.”

“You hear it too?” commiserates Cap.

The two stop bitching about it on comms, but they’re fighting back to back against the last dinos standing—four spiky bruisers that remind Tony of hork-bajir—and JARVIS registers their voices on his scan as he pinpoints the source of the noise: same place as a warm body that’s not one of the Avengers nestled out of sight on the church roof.

Tony points out Shroedinger’s supervillain.

“Get me up there,” Clint says.

“On it.” Sam swoops him up by his harness in a graceful parabola, and Clint shoots down the spikeosaur bearing down on Bucky as they fly over.

Tony leaves them to it and works on hauling downed dinosaurs over the electric barrier he set up by the church for containment.

“I think these dinosaurs were people,” Natasha says abruptly. “Looks like they came from the sanctuary.”

Tony is much more gentle when he drops the next dinosaur over the electric barrier.

“Makes sense,” Bruce is saying, “but if they were civilians, how are they so coordinated?”

“This asshole,” Sam growls from the roof.

A moment later, Clint announces, “Asshole is down.”

“Whatever you just did, thank you!” Bucky shouts as the last dinosaur pauses. He knocks it out with visible relief.

Tony didn’t think you could project relief with a punch, but this is the company he keeps. He intuits the dog whistle sound’s stopped before JARVIS informs him.

Bucky and Sam are hauling the last few dinosaurs into the barrier, Natasha and Clint are investigating the church for the method of dinosaur affliction, and Bruce and Tony are examining the device and helmet pulled from today’s mad scientist supervillain, when Nat shouts, “Steve, incoming!”

The smallest dinosaur they’ve seen so far comes charging out of the church toward Cap on stubby little legs. The fakeosaur is three feet tall, maybe, and its spikes look more like nubs. It’s obviously a juvenile.

Cap’s shield is in defensive position before the dinosaur crosses the threshold, but when he sees it, he chuckles and slots the shield back onto his back. “Hey, kid,” he says, crouching with his Captain America smile.

No less than four Avengers, Tony included, proceed to curse out Captain America and bring their weapons to bear to protect him from his stupidity.

“Language,” Cap tells them sternly without breaking his smile.

“Language?” Tony says. “Really, Cap?”

“There’s a kid here! All of you stand down, you’ll scare him.”

Bruce backs him up about not backing him up. “He’s right, guys, that’s just a kid now.”

“Yup,” Clint drawls from the church. “Excitable. Mostly harmless.”

None of them fire as the babysaur tries to skid to a stop in front of Captain America and falls backwards onto its excited, wriggly butt. It’s making a weird yipping noise, like if a bird tried to bark like a chihuahua.

Everyone stands down and tries to be extremely quiet.

Why would they interrupt what will inevitably give them fodder to embarrass Steve for months, if not years to come?

Cap stands and helps the dinosaur to its feet, and it…tries to hug him with its hilariously tiny arms, buries its knob-crowned head in Cap’s hip, and honest-to-Odin _nuzzles_ him.

Tony slams his faceplate shut and turns off his comms so no one will hear how raucously he’s laughing.

No one else has a handy dandy helmet, so they stifle their laughter and cooing as best they can to keep the kid focused on Cap.

Bucky, snickering, sidles up and elbows Tony with his metal arm. “Tell me you’re recording this.”

Tony opens his comm to Bucky exclusively and gasps, “On every goddamn camera we have,” then shuts off his comm again because his laughter is making Bucky laugh harder.

Fucking dinosaurs, man.

And trust Steve Rogers to find the only one in existence that’s a Captain America fan.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading—I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, do leave kudos and/or a comment to let me know! ^_^


End file.
